My stroke started with a headache

The day I had the stroke was just like any other, Screenrights and EnhanceTV’s Wendy writes.

I went to the gym and was planning to drive my daughter to her part-time job in Chatswood. I finished my circuit at the gym and I was about to leave, when I suddenly had an almighty and all-consuming headache. That is the last thing I remember for several weeks.

I woke up to find that I didn’t know the people around me, why these people couldn’t understand me and why I didn’t understand what these people were saying to me. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t sit up or get out of bed! What was happening to me?

Over the next few weeks the horror of my new situation dawned on me, I was brought to my knees when I realised that I wore a nappy and had no longer had control over any portion of my life. Everything had changed in the blink of an eye. I had had a stroke.

To hear someone say that you would not be able to walk or talk again is devastating — and from that moment on the words, ‘I’ll show you’ became my mantra!